


Lost Youth

by peachy_chulanont



Series: What We Do Is Secret [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Mafia AU, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Organized Crime, Russian Mafia, Smoking, Teenage Rebellion, Underage Drinking, actual events, lots of ballet references, real people referenced, references to violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachy_chulanont/pseuds/peachy_chulanont
Summary: Viktor Nikiforov wasn't born into the Russian Mob. He was born into a company of ballerinas. So how did he get involved with the bratva - all while becoming the world's number one figure skater?✨A companion to the Mafia AUBetween The Shadow And The Soul✨





	1. Svetlana

**Author's Note:**

> I've been saying that I have a backstory for Vik and this is that!! To be read either before BTSATS or around Chapter 14 to give better clarity to the rest of the story.
> 
> This is Viktor's story, starting with his early childhood.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor's early childhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ballet dancers and places mentioned are real people. If you're curious, I definitely recommend giving them a quick google :)

Viktor Evgenievich Nikiforov was born on the 25th of December, 1989. His mother, Svetlana, was a well-known dancer, one of prima ballerina Lilia Baranovskya’s prodigies. Svetlana had fallen in love with a young private in the Soviet Army when she was eighteen, Evgeni Nikiforov. It was almost an idyllic thing, something with the air of a fairy tale in pictures; a handsome young man just barely more than a teenager in his fatigues, ready to fight in the Soviet-Afghan War, and the white-blonde ballet prodigy. Svetlana looked at Evgeni like he’d hung the stars in the sky and he looked at her like she was a goddess, the best thing to ever happen to him. They were supposed to marry when the war was over; they’d have married years earlier if Evgeni hadn’t been conscripted to join the war. He was one of the last soldiers to come home in early 1989 and Svetlana was pregnant by the spring. She was young when she had Viktor – twenty and in the prime of her career. This wasn’t an issue until Evgeni died suddenly in a car accident, leaving Svetlana to raise Viktor on her own. There was no time to mourn – she had a child to live for.

Though connected to the Moscow State Academy of Ballet, Svetlana taught at the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg. Madame Lilia herself didn’t live in Moscow; she and a small company of dancers with the Bolshoi Ballet danced in a theatre smaller than Kirov and commuted by train to Moscow for performances. Svetlana’s parents would keep Viktor while Svetlana danced in Moscow until Viktor was old enough to tag along with the rest of the company.

And so Viktor grew up in the company of ballerinas, doted on by each of them as if he was their child or younger brother. Svetlana would bring him along to practices from the very beginning, often going through her stretches with him strapped to her chest. Her own parents would shake their head when Svetlana would tell them about how her baby already had opinions over the compositions they danced to, and how he’d taken a particular shine to this or that visiting dancer (her mother in particular was somewhat beside herself to hear that Svetlana hadn’t gotten a picture of Viktor asleep in the arms of Konstantin Sergeyev, who had visited Lilia’s small group of St. Petersburg Bolshoi ballerinas to invite them into the Kirov one evening). The company combed baby Viktor’s hair and powdered his cheeks with the lightest, most shimmery blush, danced around the barre room and when he was old enough, taught him how to plié and arabesque just like them. His first words were snippets of French slang the girls would use mixed with their usual Russian slang. Svetlana couldn’t have been more proud.

Svetlana kept her son’s hair long and free like hers and dressed him in the nicest, prettiest clothes she could afford as a single mother. Often, passersby on the street would stop her to compliment her lovely daughter, and Svetlana would only smile. Her own parents fussed a little, uncomfortable with the femininity of their grandson, but Svetlana shrugged away their warnings. Viktor was _her_ baby, and he was happy, wasn’t he? Her parents only knew the rigidity of the USSR – but it was the nineties now, and change was in the air. And sure enough, the Soviet Union dissolved the day after Viktor turned two – and the world they lived in showed no signs of staying the same. There was war breaking out again by the time Viktor was five. Their world was full of chaos, but Svetlana held it all at bay as best she could. She was young and sometimes airheaded and forgetful, but she didn’t hesitate to make sure Viktor’s childhood was as full of art and music as she could, rather than the sound of sirens or reports on the war happening in Chechen.

So Viktor watched the young women in the small Bolshoi-St. Petersburg company grow and change as people. He watched as some of them grew far too thin and soon stopped coming to rehearsals; he noticed when the girls would come in with red-ringed eyes and tired, gray skin; he saw the way a few grew rosier in the cheeks, married, and moved away. They still doted on Viktor, but the older he became the more he noticed the strains and stresses they carried in secret, the pain in their bodies. Like in the other ballerinas, Viktor saw the pain in his mother, too. 

He’d technically known Yakov Feltsman, Madame Lilia’s short, square-jawed husband, since he was an infant, but it wasn’t until he was just shy of turning seven that, following a discussion between Madame Lilia, Yakov, and Svetlana, he was properly introduced. Yakov, Svetlana explained to her wide-eyed cherub of a son, was once one of the Soviet Union’s premier figure skating.

“What’s figure skating?” Viktor had asked, reaching out to touch his mother’s face to demand her full attention.

Svetlana smoothed a tangle in Viktor’s long, platinum hair and smiled down at him. “It’s dancing, Viten’ka, like I do, but on ice skates.”

“Wow!” Viktor had breathed, a sweet heart-shaped grin lighting his features. He’d skated before, when the weather was cold and people flocked to big, outdoor public rinks, bundled in warm coats and clutching hot chocolates.

“Would you like to go with Yakov to the ice rink, Viten’ka? While mama stays here with Lilia and the girls?”

Immediately Viktor’s face had screwed into a frown. “But I don’t want to leave you, mama,” he said, lower lip trembling. All his life, he’d been with her or with the girls – always inside a room with a barre or a crowded theatre’s dressing room. Change was scary.

Any other child might have been scolded for being whiny, but Svetlana only took her son’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and leaned in to brush a kiss onto the tip of his nose. “Why do you cry, Viten’ka? This is a chance for you to be a kind of dancer all your own. But you can always come back to the theatre to watch me dance, and I promise I’ll come see you skate, too. If you _do_ want to skate, that is.”

“Promise?”

Svetlana laughed, and it was one of the prettiest sounds in the whole world to Viktor. “Yes, Viten’ka, I promise.”

And so Yakov had walked with Viktor the short distance from the studio where Svetlana danced to the ice rink – not the large and imposing Yubileyny, but a smaller local rink. Yakov was laconic by nature, but so were many of the older men Viktor had met at the ballet. It didn’t bother him; when Viktor got to know Yakov well enough, he filled the silences with his own observations and ponderings.

At the ice rink, Yakov lifted Viktor so he could see over the boards. He had pointed out a blonde girl, probably fifteen or sixteen (though she could pass for younger with her small stature) who was making elegant loops around the ice. Her movements looked as effortless as Svetlana’s did when she danced, but Viktor leaned over the boards and watched her closely. He could see the careful extension of her arms, the strain she was under to hold her legs just so. And then – _pop!_ – the girl jumped off the ice and spun in tight circles in the air.

“Wow!” cheered Viktor, clapping and looking up at Yakov.

Yakov smiled, a true smile, which looked odd at first on his square, gruff-looking face. “Would you like to try?”

 

❄

 

Svetlana kept her promise to Viktor. Even when she was worn to the bone, she’d walk from the studio or the small theatre to the rink where Viktor was skating. She’d cheer when Viktor landed even the smallest of jumps, was always there to shower him in compliments even when Viktor felt he hadn’t performed the best.

“Incredible, Viten’ka! How well you skate,” she’d say to him, fixing the long platinum rope of his braided hair. “Every time I see you skate, you surprise me. Every time.”

Viktor preened under his mother’s endearments, beamed up at her. “Coach Yakov said maybe I could start going to competitions!”

Svetlana bit her lip. Ballet was expensive, but figure skating… that was even more so. Viktor was smiling his heart-smile at her, his eyes crinkled at the corners the way Evgeni’s had. So Svetlana kissed his nose and said to him, “Of course, my dove, I’ll talk to Yakov and we’ll see.”

 

Yulia, the girl Viktor had seen skating his first day at the rink, came over to Viktor a few days later.

“I heard Coach Yakov is going to let you start competing. How exciting!”

Viktor nodded seriously. “Mama said I must try my very hardest.”

Yulia laughed and ruffled Viktor’s hair. “I’m sure you’ll be fantastic, Vitya. Now, you don’t have a proper pair of skates, do you?”

Viktor looked down at the skate boots Yakov had lent him, sitting now on the bench by the rest of his things. They fit well enough, just pinched his toe a little, though they weren’t the prettiest. “Well…”

Yulia smiled. “Not to worry. I have some old skates that may fit you; you’re growing, anyway, and these old school skates won’t fit you much longer.”

“Thank you, Yulia!” Viktor chirped, giving her the cherub’s smile that always made ladies on the street fawn over him. Yulia just laughed again and beckoned Viktor over to the bench where her duffel bag sat. Inside, Viktor could see several pairs of white skating boots.

“Now, Vitya,” Yulia said, her voice becoming somewhat serious, “these are white skates –”

“Oh, I don’t mind!” But there was something in Yulia’s hazel eyes that made Viktor refrain from saying anything more.

Yulia sighed. “In figure skating, the judges can be… _silly_ sometimes. They only want girls to wear the white skates, and for men to skate in black skates.”

Viktor was silent for a moment, considering. He’d never minded looking like a girl before – what was wrong with it, anyway? He’d loved being put inside his mother’s tutus when he was younger, had loved when the other primas swept his cheeks with the last of the powder on their brushes. Anyway, even when he was all made up like the ballerinas, he was still _Viktor_ , wasn’t he? Shrugging, Viktor said, “I’m not a _man_ , though, not yet,”

Yulia laughed again, and she sounded relieved. “You’re right, Vitya. Now, let’s try these on, shall we?”

 

❄

 

Viktor wore white skating boots even when he outgrew petite Yulia’s hand-me-downs. Svetlana always set aside just the right amount for skates every season – Yakov and Lilia helped, but Viktor didn’t know that until much later. It wasn’t that Svetlana struggled financially; ballerinas of her status made a fair amount of money, enough to pay for the small apartment near the water and to put food on the table, and she still taught classes at the Vaganova. Svetlana had a habit of getting lost in thought, which Lilia knew well from years of instructing her at the Vaganova Academy (and then the years of bringing her through the ranks of the Bolshoi Ballet) and there was always the fear that she’d forget to set the right amount aside, or she’d forget to pay a bill.

Yakov and Lilia thought of Svetlana as a child of theirs, and they often supported her in small ways before even asking her if she needed their help. Her own parents had died by the time Viktor was ten – her father just a month after the USSR dissolved; her mother in 1998, back in her childhood home in France. Svetlana was proud, but not too proud to turn down Yakov and Lilia’s help. Anyway, this allowed her to purchase nice clothes, shelves and shelves of books, and the best things for Viktor, who was her highest priority in life.

 

❄

 

When Viktor was eleven, four years nearly to the day that he’d started skating under Yakov’s tutelage, Yulia brought Viktor over and announced that in a few months, she’d have a baby that Viktor could mentor just as Yulia had mentored Viktor. Viktor was shocked – he’d always thought of Yulia as someone closer to his own age, not someone old enough to be a mother. When he told her this, she ruffled his hair like she always did.

“No, I’m twenty, Vitya, remember when we celebrated my birthday?”

Viktor shrugged – sometimes the days blurred together for him. It was skating that he focused on the most, skating and spending time with his mama. “I guess,” he said. “I didn’t even know you were married.”

“Vitya, you were _in_ my wedding, you were the ring bearer.” Yulia rolled her eyes, and she really _did_ seem younger when she did that. But her face wasn’t as round as it once had been, and even though she was still short, her body looked more like an adult’s than a child’s. And under her protective hand, Viktor could even see the small swell of her tummy, the shape at odds with the hours of intense training on and off ice that Yulia had put in for years and years. There was no denying that she was pregnant.

“So you’re _really_ having a baby,[Yula](.)?”

“Yes! In the spring.”

Viktor was quiet again, and Yulia didn’t prod him to say anything more. Then, “Will you still come skate with me?”

There was a determined glint in Yulia’s hazel eyes. “Yakov will have to hold me back from the ice himself – and I’d _really_ like to see him try.”

 

❄

 

Yulia’s baby was a boy. He didn’t look like much to Viktor – small and red, with bleary blue-green eyes and a shock of blond hair that stood straight up. He’d been named Yuri, after his mother who he so resembled. Viktor never got to start training Yulia’s baby as his mentee, though. Not long after her baby was born, Yulia moved with her family to Moscow for her husband’s work, and that was that.

It was hard to be content with the way things were when you never got a say in them in the first place, Viktor thought.

 

❄

 

When Viktor began competing in the national competitions for the novice singles skaters, it was without his mother by his side. She was busy, Yakov told Viktor, but Lilia had agreed to pass the phone to her when Yakov could call the studio or the theatre and give them Viktor’s scores. No one told him that she was ill for months, not until she was at the hospital more than she was at home. Lilia and Yakov brought Viktor into their home to stay.

“Just until Svetka feels better,” Lilia would say, but she’d bite her lip and look away.

There was a pocket of remission, when Svetlana and Viktor moved back into their apartment, which had become dusty and smelled stale from their long absence. Svetlana looked different without her waist-length blonde hair and the round apples of her cheeks; she looked hollowed, even though her eyes still lit up when she looked at her son, and she still had the loveliest laugh Viktor had ever heard. She didn’t return to dancing at the Bolshoi with Lilia. Instead, she spent her days reading in the sunny windowseat of the apartment or watching Viktor skate at the rink. On Viktor’s days off, Svetlana would take him by the hand and they’d walk through the market or along the water; sometimes they would take drives to villages around St. Petersburg to look at antiques or visit small festivals that sprung up with the transition of winter to spring.

Remission didn’t last for as long as it should’ve, though, and with the next season of figure skating starting, Svetlana ended up back in the hospital. They’d made some kind of mistake, as Viktor understood it, and they missed out on treating her all those months she’d spent in the sun with him. It made his insides writhe with guilt.

For Viktor’s fourteenth birthday, Svetlana was able to come home to Yakov and Lilia’s. It was Christmas, technically, but the Russian Orthodox church didn’t usually celebrate Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December, and anyway, Yakov and Lilia were Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas at all.

Viktor’s one birthday gift from his mama was a wriggling, fluffy brown puppy. Lilia didn’t even fuss about having a dog brought into her pristine, opulently decorated home. Viktor called the dog Makkachin, and when he told his mother this, she gave that lovely bell-peal laugh Viktor remembered from his youth, even though it turned into a cough before long.

Makkachin was the last gift Viktor received from his mama.

It wasn’t until after the funeral – a well-attended affair full of weeping ballerinas in their expensive black dresses on a day gray from spring rain and rich with the smell of perfumes and flowers and the rich earth turned back for Svetlana’s casket – that Viktor realized how alone he was. He’d never even known his father, and now his mother, the one who had called him the light of her life, was gone. All he had was this ungainly poodle puppy, Makkachin – just Makkachin and skating.

Yakov and Lilia didn’t let Viktor wonder where he would go, and promptly shut down Viktor’s offer of moving out into one of the dorms at Yubileyny.

“You’ll stay with us, of course,” Yakov had said in that gruff voice of his. So Makkachin and Viktor kept the guest room they’d been in for months, where Viktor had been staying ‘only temporarily’ until he could return home to his mama. It was the closest thing he had to a home now.

His bedroom was small but easily held all of his things: besides skating gear and workout clothes, the bookshelf full of old paperbacks Svetlana had always loved to read, several framed photographs (at least two of his hero Rudolf Nureyev, who had defected from the Soviet Union in 1961, and an autographed headshot of Vladimir Vasiliev, who was the director of the Bolshoi Ballet for part of Viktor’s childhood and would even occasionally come round for dinner with the perfect Ekaterina Maximova), Svetlana’s record collection of 80’s New Wave and dance club music, and clothes he was rapidly starting to outgrow, Viktor and Makkachin had more than enough space for themselves. It felt like all of his life could be reduced down to what was in that small guest bedroom. Viktor didn’t know how he was going to move forward anymore.

 

❄

 

Svetlana had always smoothed Viktor’s long hair out of his face and told him how he never ceased to surprise her. That became Viktor’s goal – to surprise his audiences. He’d been lucky in that people knew his name before he was even a very good skater; not only was his coach Yakov Feltsman, the Soviet Union’s old champion figure skater, but his mother had been _Svetlana_ , the mononymous darling who had once been a standout at the world famous Vaganova and proceeded to rapidly climbed the ranks of the Bolshoi Ballet under even more impressive Lilia Baranovskya. Viktor gained fans for his look alone, with his waist-length white blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Lilia and Yakov had made the white skates he had always worn part of his image, and they created programs that played on Viktor’s femininity and grace as much as they played on his aggressive talent.

It seemed to make sense that his skating was so captivating.

Surprising the audience was what Viktor sought to do, and it’s exactly what he was able to do. When he was sixteen, two years after Svetlana died, Viktor broke a world record with his skating. He smiled dutifully for all the press – the Russian media was elated to find a citizen that the country was willing to rally behind following the years of war, terrorism, and tension that had plagued Russia since 1994 – but in private, Viktor was inconsolable. It wasn’t _fair_ , it wasn’t fair at _all_ , to get this far without his mother by his side. Sure, Viktor had Yakov and Lilia, but they weren’t his _parents_ ; they didn’t even feel like an aunt and uncle. They were his _coach_ and _choreographer_ , and there were days that it hurt to look at them. Viktor didn’t even have Yulia anymore; she was busy being a mom to baby Yuri somewhere in Moscow – because like everyone else, she’d left him, too.

What Viktor _did_ have (besides Makkachin, who went everywhere with Viktor like a fluffy, tail-wagging, old-toe-shoe-eating shadow) was _skating_. And so he did the only thing he could and pushed himself to the edge of what was possible. He let himself be inundated with the fame already swirling around him; he became cocky and flippant but could back up all his quips with viciously precise jumps. With the money he made (what wasn’t promptly taken by Yakov to the bank) he bought himself nicer clothes than he’d ever had, never mind that he was growing. He got into petty arguments with fellow skaters, sometimes starting because he apparently lacked the self-awareness to know when he’d gone too far in teasing.

The younger skaters at Yubileyny didn’t know whether to give him a wide berth or to flock to him like he was some sort of god to look up to. In the end, it didn’t matter. Viktor was always at the rink, shining like a harsh fluorescent light, and he impacted every person who watched him skate. There was another one of Yakov’s students, Georgi Popovich, who was Viktor’s age nearly to the day – his birthday was December 26, the day after Viktor’s – but Georgi and Viktor never were close friends. Many thought they would be, though – both were talented and emotional boys who prioritized their sport. The contrast was in that Georgi was so grateful to be a student of Yakov’s that he followed every rule and every critique through to a point.

While Georgi waxed poetic about training, Viktor rolled his eyes and skipped off-ice practice to flirt with hockey players or crash ballet rehearsals at Lilia’s studio. To add insult to injury, Georgi was held back by his emotions and Viktor won competition after competition like it was second nature to him. And at age sixteen, Viktor lacked the tact the see that it hurt Georgi’s feelings when Viktor joked about the whole thing and steadfastly refused to be even a remotely better student. Instead, he stole a bottle of cheap vodka from Yakov’s office at the rink to share with a boy he’d met while walking Makkachin who had fingernails painted bright blue, and showed up to practice the next day several hours late and still somewhat drunk.

Half the time, Yakov was beside himself – his star skater was a brat who hardly listened and still performed better than any other athlete Yakov had ever trained.  Where was the sweet, wide-eyed baby Svetlana had pleaded him to coach?

But there was some good to him, underneath the cold eyes, smirks, and gauzy layers of glitter. Yulia Plisetskya had gotten herself caught up in an industry that kept her away from her child and the sport she loved, and when she died suddenly under suspicious circumstances, Viktor was reminded starkly of his own childhood. Little Yuri still lived in Moscow, but now with Yulia’s father, Nikolai – before she died so suddenly, she’d divorced Yuri’s father Mikhail, who hadn’t been awarded any custody. Even though Yakov and Viktor were in St. Petersburg, Viktor made sure Yakov knew that he was more than prepared to sponsor Yuri should he decide to follow in his mother’s footsteps. All the money Viktor earned – he had no one, no family, to support or lavish. Buying fancy shoes or designer collars for Makkachin was nice, but he wanted to have some sort of lasting impression; he didn’t want to fade away into obscurity… Yakov only shook his head sadly and dried his eyes with his sleeve.

 

❄ 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> \- The 'Kirov' referenced here is the Mariinsky Ballet and Theatre; it was called 'Kirov' until the dissolution of the USSR, and where I describe it, the USSR is still intact, so it makes sense to call it Kirov rather than Mariinsky.  
> \- The dancers referenced are real people! Rudolf Nureyev in particular is an icon of mine, and I actually wrote a short comparison between him and Viktor [here](https://peachy-chulanont.tumblr.com/post/174391562600/)  
> \- a 'boyevik' is a 'bratok', which is to say, a member of the bratva of a lower status.


	2. Everybody Breaks A Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor's first look at organized crime is much closer to home than he would've expected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally, this was part of the first chapter. if it looks like something you read a few months ago, that's because it is. (more details in the end notes)

There was more about Yakov than met the eye. Viktor learned this, living under the same roof as the man for half a decade. Lilia was almost always commuting between Moscow and St. Petersburg; she was never home, but that didn’t mean that the house was empty. Yakov had all kinds of meetings in Lilia’s pristine dining room, meetings that Viktor was told to stay far away from. Viktor had long since ceased to listen to Yakov, though; he’d press his ear against the door and listen instead to the gruff voices of the strangers who came calling.

It was around the time that Viktor won his first world title that he realized who the men were.

 Bratva – members of the Russian Mafia. They didn’t look like the men he’d been warned of growing up – all of Russia in the nineties had been all but run exclusively by gangs, and the images Viktor thought of when he heard ‘bratva’ were men in tracksuits with gold teeth and cigars, shaved bald and crudely – proudly – tattooed with obscene things. But this wasn’t who he saw in his kitchen. These men looked like the politicians he saw on TV: well dressed in obviously expensive suits, wearing heavy gold watches and rings, combed hair and deceptively impassive faces. They spoke in voices soft enough to make you lean in but still dangerous as the edge of a blade.

Yakov, who was steadily balding and had the compact frame of a skater and the gut of a man gone to seed, didn’t seem intimidated by these men, though. Viktor would catch snatches of what Yakov would say: reminders of his years of greatness, what that had meant to all of the Soviet Union. There was someone called ‘Vor’ that Yakov would mention, too, and from the shuffling and grumbles that always followed that name, this _Vor_ person had some great importance.

Viktor started smoking around the same time he started learning about the bratva. The men who met with Yakov all smoked; as soon as they left, though, Yakov would throw the windows open and mist strongly scented air freshener through the home. Lilia didn’t approve of smoking, not in the house at least. Almost every adult Viktor knew smoked, though, and it wasn’t hard to wait around the halls and ask for cigarettes from the visiting men as they walked to the door. Whatever connection they made between Viktor and Yakov, Viktor didn’t know – but he was usually left with a cigarette or two to stick into his pocket.

He didn’t have a lighter at first, so his first cigarette was lit with the gas light on the kitchen stove while Yakov was on the phone in his study. When he eventually caught Viktor smoking - which happened before long – he shook his head and gave Viktor the usual threats about the deterioration of his lungs, but didn’t outright demand that he quit. He couldn’t in good conscious, after all, not when he smoked like a chimney whenever he was stressed or in the company of the bratva men. 

It was with a reason like this that Viktor was able to wheedle his way into learning more about these bratva men. How could Yakov keep him away when he’d brought these men into the home, right in front of Viktor? 

First Yakov feigned ignorance; he said he didn’t recall any of these visitors, and that Viktor was being nosy and a pest. Viktor decided not to argue back (yet). Instead, he plucked Yakov’s lighter from where it had been deposited on the kitchen table with his keys and wallet when he’d come home from the rink and used it to light one of the cigarettes he’d been hoarding in his room. Viktor sat on the kitchen counter and watched as Yakov turned a shade of red and then a marbled shade of purple.

“Breathe, coach, or you’re going to pass out. We both know I don’t know CPR.”

“If you’re going to smoke, do it out the window or Lilia will have both our heads,” Yakov finally growled, grabbing Viktor’s arm and pulling him off the counter. “Would it kill you to have manners?”

Viktor wanted to quip that yes, it probably would, but when he looked over his shoulder Yakov was fishing a cigarette from his own half-empty pack and stomping after him. This was a good sign – not the smoking, necessarily, but that Yakov was coming to join Viktor at the window. It meant that he wasn’t going to abandon the conversation; perhaps Yakov was finally going to give Viktor the truth.

Waiting patiently had never been Viktor’s strong suit, but he did his best to focus on the passersby on the street below instead of Yakov, who was chewing this inside of his cheek between long drags on his cigarette. Finally, Yakov stubbed out the butt of his cigarette in an ashtray he’d apparently plucked from a hidden alcove and turned to Viktor with a sigh.

“Vitya, in this world there are many different ways to have power.”

Viktor nodded; this was something he knew well. After all, he was Russian – he knew his country’s history, the rise and fall of the tsars and communism. Hell, when he was born, the Berlin Wall was still standing. He’d let his cigarette burn down to the filter before smoking as much as he would’ve liked; swallowing irritation with himself, he pressed it out in the ashtray between his elbow and Yakov’s before turning to look out the window, waiting for Yakov to say something more.

Yakov was still chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Just as there are different means of having power, there are different ways of maintaining both power and peace. There is nothing in this world that is not tinged with some sort of sacrifice or some illegality. Life must be this way to run smoothly for the greater good, you see?”

Viktor nodded again, slower this time. Yakov wasn’t looking at him.

“When I talk about this, Vitya, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean these petty street thugs who mug women for sport. No, I’m talking about greater things.”

“Like Vor?” Viktor asked, unthinking.

Yakov became very still. “You’ve been eavesdropping.”

Viktor didn’t deny it, but he bit his lip. He knew how to deal with Yakov yelling himself red in the face, but this quiet, still Yakov made him nervous. Yakov let the silence stretch on for several heartbeats before shaking his head in a grim sort of way.

“Good god, Vitya. Not everything is something meant for you to hear. Not everything is about you!” His face was reddening, but Viktor found it easier to breathe. He could deal with temper like this. Yakov continued, “You are arrogant and you speak of things you don’t understand.”

“So help me understand,” Viktor snapped back, bumping the ashtray with his arm and nearly upending it onto the white carpet below.

“No.” the anger had quickly left Yakov’s voice, leaving it flat. It made Viktor bristle even more.

“Why not? How can you carry on with this secret when I already know the half of it –”

“You’re too young, Vitya!” Yakov was no longer leaning on the windowsill, but standing up straight. He wasn’t taller than Viktor anymore, but for the moment, with Viktor still warily leaning to the side, he was.

Viktor shoved his long hair out of his face. “I’m sixteen,” he argued, “I’m nearly of age.”

“ _Nearly_ is not the same as _being_ of age. And even then, no – I don’t want you involved in this, do you understand me?”

Furious, Viktor pushed past Yakov and stomped towards his bedroom, Makkachin trotting warily at his heels. Whether Yakov liked it or not, this wasn’t something Viktor would let himself be kept away from.

 

❄

 

The subject of organized crime didn’t come up again for weeks. Still prickling with irritation, Viktor threw himself into his skating, on maintaining his programs’ status as the best in the world rankings. Yakov (foolishly) seemed to decide that for once Viktor had taken him at his word and had chosen not to pursue his desire to learn more about whatever it was that Yakov did. Viktor was waiting, though, and watching.

It wasn’t only older, imposing-looking men who showed up to talk to Yakov. No, there were others, too – younger, rougher men who more often than not cowered away from Yakov and kept their eyes low. These weren’t the types of men Viktor would follow and ask for a cigarette (he was buying his own now, anyway, having started the habit to spite Yakov and ending up quite hooked). No, but he would watch them all the same. The years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union had been hard on Russia.

And there were other things for Viktor to get up to, anyway, while he tried to figure out the bratva. Homosexuality had been a tempestuous subject in Russia since the seventeenth century; more recently, it was recriminalized under Stalin and then legalized under Yeltsin. Even so, there wasn’t an overwhelmingly positive reception of most Russians to any kind of gay or bisexual behavior. Viktor knew he was attracted to other boys at a fairly young age; thankfully, his mother never minded when Viktor brought it up. She had simply told him to be with someone who made him happy – that was what mattered. Growing up surrounded by ballet, there had never been a shortage of gay or bisexual people for Viktor to look up to. His hero even into adulthood was Rudolf Nureyev, who was openly gay and still thought of as the best ballet dancer to ever live. With his image already being established as a feminine or at least androgynous skater, Viktor already heard plenty of slurs directed his direction, but he didn’t mind too much. It was always unpleasant, of course, to be shouted at, but Viktor had something more than the people who harassed him – a world title at the age of sixteen.

But for as many assholes as he encountered, there were plenty of other young men who made eyes right back at him. The boy with blue nail polish who he saw on his walks with Makkachin was named Artur, and in addition to his skill at applying polish with his non-dominant hand he could kiss like a demon. It wasn’t that Viktor was looking for a relationship, though, and this was the downfall of his friendship with Artur and a few boys like him. Viktor just wanted to feel like a normal teenager, not someone already being saddled with lofty monikers like ‘Russia’s Shining Star’ or the ‘Ice Prince of Russia’ by the press.

Flirting with the hockey players who shared the rink with Yakov’s skaters was more of a habit than something Viktor did with any hope of actually finding a boyfriend – once, a hockey player about a year older than Viktor had asked to meet him behind the rink and then attempted to jump him. Viktor never learned quite what was told to the other hockey players when the guy showed up to practice with a black eye and swollen nose, but after that the majority of them seemed more wary of Viktor than anything else. A handful of them, though, were good for a laugh. One of the hockey players, Stepan, actually became something of a friend to Viktor, though. He was a year or so older, broad and tall in a way that Viktor thought would work if he ever wanted to exchange chasing a puck for ice dancing, and was usually good for invites to house parties (much to Yakov’s chagrin).

It was at one of these parties that Stepan had invited Viktor to that he recognized someone he had never thought he’d see again. It was one of the young men who had come to the rink to talk to Yakov, with pockmarked skin and a way of speaking out of the side of his mouth from the habit of holding a cigarette at the same time, though he couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen. He wore track pants and a wife beater, though it was still cool outside.

Viktor thought of the way Yakov stonewalled him every time he tried to bring up the subject of the bratva and quickly made up his mind. Of course, there would be a few ways for this guy to react to him – Viktor hoped it would be favorable, because he had better things to do at the house party than end up with a bruised jaw and split knuckles. It was a risk, though, that he was willing to take, and Viktor made his way across the room.

“Hi,” Viktor said, leaning in close as he dared. The older boy was sipping his drink, but he raised an eyebrow at Viktor in acknowledgement. Viktor smiled his best press smile and offered his hand to shake. “I’m Viktor Evgenievich.”

The boy rolled his eyes at Viktor’s hand and looked away, over his head. “I know who you are,”

“Are you going to tell me who you are, though?” Viktor asked, taking a sip of his own drink. It was some of the cheapest vodka he’d ever tasted, but then again, whoever was throwing this party likely didn’t have access to a liquor cabinet of the same caliber as Yakov and Lilia’s.

The boy scoffed, but after a moment, he said, “Kazimir.”

Viktor nodded and moved so that he was leaning against the same wall as Kazimir. “Have we met before, Kazimir?”

Kazimir drained his drink, still looking away from Viktor. “Obviously not.”

“Really? I could have sworn I’ve seen you before,” Viktor said, tapping his lip in a show of perplexion. He wasn’t prepared when Kazimir dropped his empty solo cup and rounded on Viktor, pinning him against the wall.

“What are you playing at, kid?” he growled, his face close enough that Viktor could almost taste the beer he’d been drinking. “I’m dangerous, don’t push me,”

Viktor blinked up at Kazimir and calmly said, “I don’t mind being pinned down, but it’s only polite to buy me dinner first, don’t you think?”

Kazimir jumped away from Viktor like he’d been burned, which is the reaction Viktor had anticipated. He moved easily away from the wall, but grabbed Kazimir’s wrist before he could do anything more. Hours upon hours of off-ice training didn’t make Viktor bulky, but he was still stronger than most people anticipated. This, again, was the case with Kazimir. He narrowed his eyes at Viktor, but didn’t try to pull himself free – not when he realized it would be a fight.

“What do you want?”

Viktor raised his chin. “I want you to tell me about being in the bratva.”

Kazimir barked a laugh, taken off guard. “What?”

“I want you to tell me about your mob affiliation,” Viktor repeated, shoving his hair back with his free hand. Kazimir’s eyes were narrowing; he was obviously trying to decide between building up whatever street cred he thought he had and shaking the whole thing off as nonsense. It was his ego that got the best of him. He looked Viktor up and down, eyes lingering on the pack of cigarettes peeking out of his pocket.

“Let me have a cigarette and I will,” Kazimir said.

 _At least he’s not acting like he wants to kick my ass for that earlier comment_ , Viktor thought. He shrugged and gestured to the house’s back doors. “Lead the way.”

It was quieter outside, but only just. There were still plenty of people around, most of them smoking, too. As much as Viktor wanted to pepper Kazimir with questions, he knew he’d have to wait. So they smoked in silence for a moment, sizing each other up from the corner of their eyes.

Finally, Kazimir sighed and looked at Viktor properly. “What do you want to know?”

“What do you do?” Viktor asked without hesitating.

Kazimir took a long drag on his cigarette, looking somewhat smug. “Right now, I run messages between the boyeviks. But they’re saying that the vor is going to bring me in soon.”

Viktor frowned. Here was mention of ‘vor’ again. He couldn’t risk asking about that, though, should this kid shut him down like Yakov had at the mention of vor. “So what, Yakov is a boyevik?”

“Yakov?” Kazimir looked confused for a moment, and Viktor had to fight not to make a face.

“Yeah, I saw you at the rink, talking to him or something.”

“I don’t – oh, _him_. Mr. Feltsman,” Kazimir nodded, giving Viktor a considering look. “No, he’s not. He’s one of the two spies.”

Spies? The mental image of him carrying out James Bond-style heists was almost too much. Viktor almost laughed – how could anyone call _Yakov_ a spy? “Alright, what’s the whole deal with him, then?”

Kazimir looked at Viktor sideways. “Isn’t he your, what, skating teacher? Something like that?”

Viktor took a drag on his cigarette to distract himself. This was no time to get touchy about the way people talked about figure skating. “Something like that.”

“So why are you so curious?” Kazimir asked, stubbing out the butt of his cigarette on the brick side of the house.

Viktor took a deep breath. This was it, wasn’t it? “Because I want in.”

 

❄

 

Viktor met Christophe when he was seventeen, having just won the European Championship. Chris was in the stands when Viktor was leaving the ice after the medal ceremony; he’d called out to Viktor, introduced himself. Viktor had thought he was humoring the younger Swiss, tossing one of the roses from his bouquet up for Chris to catch. Chris was fifteen and had just made his senior debut. He didn’t make the podium, but Viktor recognized him anyway.

“I’ll see you at World’s,” Viktor said with a smile that was only half fake. The green-hazel color of Chris’ eyes reminded Viktor of Yulia in a way that felt like a stab to his stomach. Viktor swallowed the pain and fluttered his eyelashes in the way that made women twice his age scream.

Viktor had fully intended to meet up with Chris at World’s, too. It would be good to get to know someone else in his division – Viktor knew many people, but didn’t have many friends. It wasn’t easy, being seventeen and on top of the world. But that world came tumbling down for Viktor soon enough.

It was meant to be a simple training day. Viktor was going through his roster of quads; Yakov thought it was important to be able to land all kinds of jumps in order for Viktor to continue to stay ahead of the crowd. His routine wasn’t going to change for the season, though – he was miles ahead of the rest of the skaters in his division. These quads were just to see where Viktor’s limits were. He found his limits in the worst way.

When he hit the ice after falling out of a quad flip, there was a terrible crack. Everyone inside Yubileyny had had their share of falls, but there was something different about this one. The rink went silent for a horrible moment, when Viktor was lying on the ice, fighting to draw a breath. And then he screamed, and it was like a most beautiful record had scratched and the turntable it was on was stuck on a humming, distorted note. Viktor’s world had crashed down around him, with an explosion of pain he’d never before felt.

At some point he lost consciousness. When he awoke, it was in a hospital room. Viktor had hated hospitals since he watched his mother die in one; what he learned from the grave-faced doctors around him only cemented that distaste. At seventeen, Viktor had fractured his right femur from a badly flubbed jump. His season was over and, Yakov told him with a very gray face, they’d have to wait and see how he healed before they could even think about Viktor’s skating future. First, Viktor would be going into surgery, where they’d put pins into his bone and screw a plate in place to keep his femur together while it healed. There would be months of physical therapy and even after that was done, it would be a long time before Viktor would be returning to skate quads. And this was his right leg, his landing leg. _My life is over_.

For the first time, Viktor had an intrusive thought of suicide. It was a violent urge, gone in a flash, and likely brought on by the horrible surge of emotions he was feeling. His right leg was in traction, a splint from his crotch to his ankle holding it straight. The pain of embarrassment – this was all from a stupid _goddamn_ flubbed jump – and frustration at being out for the season were almost more overwhelming than the pain from the broken femur.

The surgery to stabilize Viktor’s femur was completed without issue – that’s what Lilia told him when he woke once again in a crowded hospital room. There were already flowers covering most of the surfaces in the room. It looked like his fans had caught wind of where he was, because more than half of the flowers sent were blue-dyed roses. It hurt to look at them, to see them and think of his costume, of the season of skating he’d miss. Lilia pretended not to notice Viktor’s silent tears first, but concern got the better of her.

“Vitya, are you in a lot of pain?” she asked, resting a cool, dry hand over his.

It was a minute before Viktor could answer. _Yes_ , he wanted to say, _I’m in fucking agony! Skating is my whole life and now I won’t have anything. I’m in agony._ Finally, he managed to lie and say, “It’s not too bad.”

Lilia could pick out liars better than just about anyone Viktor knew, though. She grabbed a button from the table beside the hospital bed and put it into Viktor’s hand. “This is morphine,” she said, “You can push the button every half-hour when you’re in pain, and a nurse will come add it to your IV.”

Viktor looked over to the IV stand Lilia had indicated. And sure enough, there was a needle in his hand, taped steady. Looking at it made him sick to his stomach, and he told Lilia so. She looked away with her own silent tears. There was nothing to say; there was no fixing this.

 

❄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that it would be a little easier to post shorter (or, for some people, simply 'normal'-length) chapters rather than the long (~8k) chapters I've been trying to get together. When it comes to Viktor's past in this AU, I definitely have a lot of material written/outlined, but it would definitely make more sense (and, true, be more accessible to the reader) to present it in a series of vignettes rather than traditional chapters. So this is that - I've been sorely neglecting this part of the AU (on main, at least), and splicing the original first chapter into two vignettes is the first step to getting me to be more productive :)
> 
> Thanks for bearing with me!!!
> 
> Original housekeeping notes:  
> \- The 'Kirov' referenced here is the Mariinsky Ballet and Theatre; it was called 'Kirov' until the dissolution of the USSR, and where I describe it, the USSR is still intact, so it makes sense to call it Kirov rather than Mariinsky.  
> \- The dancers referenced are real people! Rudolf Nureyev in particular is an icon of mine, and I actually wrote a short comparison between him and Viktor [here](https://peachy-chulanont.tumblr.com/post/174391562600/)  
> \- a 'boyevik' is a 'bratok', which is to say, a member of the bratva of a lower status.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to post this until it was totally finished, but I've been in a bit of a slump and haven't wanted to move forward with BTSATS without posting at least something of the backstory that I have, so this is the compromise I made to myself. So here it is, some of Viktor's backstory in the AU I've been writing! I know it's a lot rougher and there's not that degree of canon compliance - not like there is in the main story - but I've done a ton of research, and I'm super super attached to this. Like, I could probably go on forever waxing poetic about how much I love Svetlana. Like seriously (sorry about what happened to her tho...). 
> 
> In this backstory, you'll see the criminal edge that BTSATS kinda lacks - I don't plan on anything being graphic because I'm just not that kind of writer, but there will be references to drug use/substance abuse, as referenced in the main fic. As always, if you have questions about that, definitely come talk to me! 
> 
> If you've read chapter 14 of BTSATS, you know the rest of Viktor's story. My hope is that before that work is complete, I'll have Viktor's backstory all fleshed out here for y'all, too. I definitely know what I want to say, it's just a matter of putting it properly into words. That being said, if you have any questions leave them below or find me on [tumblr](https://peachy-chulanont.tumblr.com)!! I can definitely go on and on about this world. And if you HAVEN'T read BTSATS yet..... get on that! Please?
> 
> Definitely let me know what you thought! All kudos and comments don't go unnoticed, and they're definitely bright points to my day. Thank you again for reading!


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